


cursed but always hoping

by commas_and_ampersands



Series: The Lazarus Debt [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Temporary Character Death, featuring all the stuff i like and blithely ignoring what i don't, frankenstein's patchwork quilt of continuity, i'm a sucker for functionally immortal characters who absolutely do not want to be
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-27
Updated: 2018-06-27
Packaged: 2019-05-29 08:18:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15069032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commas_and_ampersands/pseuds/commas_and_ampersands
Summary: “Could one of you tell him he’s already won the award for most kidnappings in this so-called family?  Possibly the entire vigilante community?  He doesn’t have to keep signing up for more.”“You know Dick: ever the overachiever.”----Or the one where Dick gets kidnapped, Jason gets killed, and then everything gets complicated.





	cursed but always hoping

**Author's Note:**

> Title blatantly stolen from "Blood on My Name" by The Brothers Bright, which features in like 85% of Jason Todd fanmixes for a reason.
> 
> I've never actually written Batman fanfiction before, and I am very nervous about posting this. But writing this story helped end a block that lasted actual, literal years, so I'm sharing it if only to celebrate that achievement. I've got a pretty complete draft of this first story done, so hopefully I'll be able to finish editing and posting in the next week or so.
> 
> As for continuity... I don't know, it's kind of whatever. Basically, UtRH happens, and Jason books it out of Gotham immediately, thereby avoiding all the Battle for the Cowl stuff I hate (all of it, I hate all of it). Then he hooks up with Roy and Kori pretty quickly for their violent, therapeutic ass-kicking trip around the world. Which probably doesn't resemble anything that actually happened in the first run of Red Hood and the Outlaws because that's one of those things I like more in concept than in execution.
> 
> That actually describes my relationship with comic books as a whole, but whatever. I hope you enjoy!

Jason woke with a jolt, blearily staring at the burner phones ringing on his bedside table.  He kept at least four numbers active at any given time, not including disconnected ones he’d rerouted to ping his open lines.  The scummier informants on his payroll didn’t have access to the same point of contact street kids and working girls did, and he tried to keep all work calls separate from his personal line.  Not that anyone but Roy and occasionally Kori used it, but he liked not having to hesitate in answering that phone.  He’d been particularly proud to keep that line from being infested with Bats.

Since all his phones screamed at him now, a discordant cacophony of alarms and ringtones, Jason guessed that ship’d been blown to hell.  Only one Bat turned Oracle would pull this stunt.  He reached for the nearest one and answered, distantly pleased by how rough he sounded in the morning.  “What?”

“Jason, I need your help.”

Jason hadn’t worked with the original Batgirl much, but he'd spent plenty of time while she tutored him academically, and Barbara Gordon had brooked no bullshit since the womb.  Jason of old had responded to her readily.  So much so that Jason of now still couldn’t shake it, leaving him fully awake and kicking off threadbare, sweat-stained sheets.

If Barbara called, Jason would answer, but she didn’t need to know that.  “Like hell you do.  Town’s got more vigilantes than it knows what to do with these days.”

“The Birds of Prey are in Central City with Batwoman, RR’s sick, and B’s otherwise occupied.”

The fuck did that mean?  “With what?  Hell’s going on, Barbie?”

“Dick’s missing.”

Jason paused during his one-handed struggle to gather up his armor.  He suddenly felt a lot less mobilized.  “Let me get this straight.  Golden Boy gets his dumb ass kidnapped again, and I’m supposed to drop everything and pitch in because… why?”

“Because he’s been out of contact for three hours, and I can’t find him.  _I_ can’t _find_ him, Jason.”

And… yeah, Jason could see that setting off a panic.  Oracle wasn’t technically omniscient, but she was damn close.  Anything that could keep something hidden from her, that was something to worry about.  Grayson or no Grayson.

Though he’d have preferred no Grayson, obviously.

He put her on speaker so he could suit up.  “What’d he do this time?”

Barbara sighed.  Jason couldn’t tell who she'd aimed that exasperation towards: him or Dick.  Hell, it was probably both.  “Are you familiar with the group who robbed Salem Five Bank three months ago?”

“Sure.  Five person crew.  Hacker, muscle, and three metas.  Flyer, telepath, Black Lightning knock off.”

“Electrokineticist,” Barbara corrected.

“Whatever.”

“I’m a little surprised they pinged your radar at all, to be honest.  Red Hood doesn’t usually get out of bed for high-end robberies and bank heists.”

Jason shrugged.  “I don’t, but their enforcer’s been getting more violent.  Plus, it might link up with a serial killer I have been tracking.  Victimology seems random, but the murders always take place in the surrounding area within a week of the robberies.  Only connection I’ve been able to find aside from wound pattern.”

Barbara didn’t respond, which meant the Bats hadn’t made that connection.  He couldn’t help but feel proud of that one.  They called him the failure, the screw up, the one who got himself killed because he was too young and dumb to listen.  He _loved_ proving them wrong.  Loved it more than lining up the perfect shot and the warm weight of a gun, more than the smell of binding glue in old books and dark ink on yellow paper, the laughter of a street kid when he cracked a joke, a sliver of happiness to ward off the hungry cold.

Then he remembered why she’d called him in the first place.  “And he's got Dick.  Fan-friggin-tastic.”

“We determined they were likely to hit Gotham this week, today being the most likely target,” Barbara said.  “Then narrowed it down to two branches of Gotham First National.  The plan was to gather intel as civilians, plant a tracker or two, then take them out later with a full roster.  Dick took one branch, Bruce took the other.”

“But they hit Dickie’s because of course they did,” Jason groused, cinching up his belt.  “Could one of you tell him he’s already won the award for most kidnappings in this so-called family?  Possibly the entire vigilante community?  He doesn’t have to keep signing up for more.”

“You know Dick: ever the overachiever.”

“You don’t fucking say?” Jason said.  “Still, they don’t usually take human souvenirs.”

“No, but GCPD responded faster than we anticipated,” Barbara said, her voice torn between pride in her father’s profession and irritation at their interference.  Jason made a note to needle her about this later.  “They’d surrounded the bank before the crew could make their getaway.  They’d just started arguing about fighting their way out or using a few kids as shields when Dick announced himself.”

Jason felt a specific surge of irritation he’d always associated with Dick course through him.  Plenty of people pissed him off, but Dick forever lived in a category all his own.  “Because Dick Grayson can’t resist the opportunity to throw himself on his god damned sword.  Idiot’s gonna martyr himself for this damn cesspool before he’s thirty.”

“Don’t act like you wouldn’t have done the same thing.”

“I would not have fucking done the same thing because I wouldn’t have put myself in that position!” Jason snapped.  “I’d have come up with a better plan than whatever half-assed mess you all threw together.”

“And how many explosives would figure in to this superior plan of yours?”  Barbara didn’t do snippy, but she did glacial well enough to make Freeze shiver.

“As many as it took,” Jason said, slamming a knife into his boot sheathe.  “Did B not even give him back up?  I mean, we all know he’d hang me out to dry in a hot second, but he’s always been more careful with the original.”

Barbara didn’t rise to his bait, unsurprising but disappointing.  “Batgirl and Robin were on scene.  Dick signaled them off.”  She exhaled in frustration.  “I still don’t know why.  Either he thought he could handle it himself—”

“Or something spooked him enough to warn off the kiddies,” Jason concluded.  “Since he hasn’t skipped on home, seems like he had the right idea.  Fuck.”

“Bruce isn’t going to be able to shake the hostage negotiators or Dad,” Barbara said.  “Robin, Black Bat, and Batgirl are searching on foot.  Red Robin and I are still working on our end, but I think it might come down to your networking skills, not mine.”

“Aw, Babs, you say the sweetest things.”

She scoffed.  “I say the most accurate things.”

And she wasn’t wrong.  If Bruce had ever paid him a compliment on his night work (assuming the planets had aligned in retrograde while a two-headed dog that cast no shadow howled in tongues or some shit), it would be his informants.  Jason had grown up in Crime Alley.  He knew how to talk to the people who lived there.  He’d spent his childhood charming the prostitutes in his building for cookies and a place to hide from his mom’s dealers.  He could do the same for information, and they always knew what happened on their corners.  Street kids knew he wouldn’t throw them into the (at best) indifferent arms of social services, and they were even more ubiquitous and invisible than sex workers.  Should those fail, there were always the remaining drug dealers he’d cowed and terrified.  He couldn't quite play the part of the crime boss anymore.  He'd teamed up with the Bat Clan a few too many times for that to fly.  Still, they all remembered the duffel bag full of severed heads.  Red Hood might not be quite so trigger happy anymore, but he could always change his mind.  No one wanted to be the watershed corpse.

“Don’t worry, O.  I’ll smoke him out.”

“No killing, Jason,” she warned.

He hung up.  That didn’t deserve a response.  He hadn’t killed anyone in months (zombies absolutely did not count), but every conversation with a Bat ended the same way.  ‘Don’t kill anyone, Jason.’  ‘No lethal force, Jason.’  ‘We value the lives of mass murderers over their actual and potential victims, Jason, and don’t you ever forget it.’

He knew, okay?  If he wanted to operate in Gotham, he couldn’t kill.  Never mind that it would be more efficient or that some of the fuckers they put away did not deserve to be breathing after the shit they pulled.  He couldn’t do it if he wanted to keep the Bat Clan from throwing him in Arkham three doors down from his own killer.

He’d fled Gotham after that spectacular failed confrontation with Bruce and the Joker, taken a few weeks to lick his wounds, and focused his efforts on scum outside of Gotham’s borders.  The Bats hadn’t pursued, and it hadn’t taken him long to team up with Starfire and then Roy.

It had been… nice working with people unconnected to Bruce, who’d only vaguely known him when he’d been Robin.  It had also helped that he’d found the only two people on his side of the moral line who didn’t have their heads six feet up Grayson’s ass.  They didn’t judge him based on who he’d been before he died, and even if they didn’t always agree, arguments didn’t turn into self-righteous lectures from the so-called high ground.  They supported him, believed in him, listened to him.  They were his family now.

One day he woke up and realized it had been six months since he’d killed anyone, that the roar of the Pit didn’t drown out every other conscious thought, that he didn’t feel quite so shattered and ill-repaired.  That was down to them.

They were still family, still Outlaws, but they had other commitments.  Kori had returned to Tamaran with her sister and hadn’t yet found her way back to Earth.  Roy had returned to Star City and Lian, to be a real father to her even if that meant hanging up his trick arrows.  Roy’d extended a standing invitation for Jason to live with them, but Jason only ever took him up on it intermittently.

As much as he wished it wasn't so, Gotham had her hooks in him but deep.  He hated the city as fiercely as Bruce loved it.  He’d done his damnedest to leave both behind, but that hadn't got him anywhere.  Bruce could only tread water in his quest to save Gotham from herself.  Jason would have been happy burning the island to the ground and salting the Earth, but he stuck around for every Crime Alley kid who couldn’t escape her borders.  He’d keep them safe when Batman wouldn’t.  If that meant he had to stock up on rubber bullets and think of creative solutions to keep the violence his neighborhood contained, he’d do it.

Besides, Jason thought as he reached for his helmet, there were days when he almost didn’t hate it here.  He mostly kept to street level vigilante work, scaring off the worst pimps and drug runners, putting the beat down on abusive assholes.  He micromanaged his area of Gotham with laser focus, and it showed.  A lot of people were grateful.  A lot of people almost liked him.

No one wearing a flying rodent on their tits, but you couldn’t win them all.  Not that he needed their affection or their approval.  Yeah, he’d wanted it once, but the Joker had beaten that right out of him. 

Regardless, he wasn’t going to let Dick Grayson’s stupidity be the thing to break their truce.  The system he and the Bats had silently agreed to worked.  They stayed out of Jason’s business, and he stayed out of theirs.  When their cases overlapped, Jason gritted his teeth and endured until its conclusion.  When Oracle or Nightwing or even the flippin’ Replacement called and said, “There’s an Arkham breakout, and I need you,” or “Dick’s missing, and I need you,” he went.  He didn’t know what that said about him, that a part of him couldn’t quite bring himself to say no when they called.

Especially when he knew they would never do the same for him.

He slammed the helmet home, punched the wall, and slipped out the window.

Time to save the favored son.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It took him six hours to track Grayson down.

“And today’s cliched villain hideout is: the abandoned warehouse on the docks,” Jason mused from several rooftops away.  “Someone tell Bruce he really needs to look into revitalizing port trade in this town.  If there were more working stevedores, I guarantee we wouldn’t run into this problem so much.”

“Yes, Todd,” Robin snarled over the comm link.  “I’m sure Father is ever eager to enact your sound financial advice.”  He punctuated his words with a vicious kick.  Crime in Gotham didn’t sleep just because they had bigger concerns.  A turf dispute had broken out in the Narrows, and the other three active Bats had gotten sidetracked to keep it from spiraling into a full out gang war.

“He should be.  I’m not raking in drug money anymore, but wise investments keep me solvent.”  He grinned.  “Helps having the inside track on certain business conglomerates in the area.”

Tim groaned.  “Hood, please tell me that you didn’t just confess to money laundering and insider trading as a way to finance your vigilantism.”

“Me?  Commit white collar crime?  Perish the thought.”  He magnified his view of the warehouse in question through his helmet’s sensors.  “If it makes you feel any better, I’ve got holdings in Queen Consolidated too.”

“But not Lexcorp, right?”

“Hrm.”

“ _Right_ , Hood?”

“No, I haven’t given money to a supervillain.  Relax, Replacement.”

“I’ll relax when Dick isn’t being held captive by probable serial killer.”  No one had been thrilled by Jason’s theory on what the enforcer did in his off hours, especially when Tim had taken the time to put together a few more pieces of evidence that all but confirmed it.  The fact that it had been over nine hours since Dick had been taken without a ransom call didn’t help.  Jason thought collective greed would win out over individual sadism, but the uncertainty had left all of them edgy.

Damian handled it worst.  “Are we really leaving the confirmation of Grayson’s location in the hands of the Failure?”

“Hey!  Come on, Robin,” Batgirl chided over the familiar sound of someone else being punched in the gut.  “If Hood says he found him, then he found him.”

Jason felt briefly touched by the confidence in his abilities, but the current Robin didn’t give him long to bask in it.  “Of course you’d say that.  After all, you—”

“I am positive I have the right location,” Jason said.  Damian had clearly been about to go for the jugular like he always did and bring up Stephanie’s own bloody end to her tenure as Robin.

He’d always intended to pay Black Mask back for that.  He ought to be rotting in a coffin, not a cell in Blackgate.  But he’d needed Sionis for his own brand of very hostile takeover.  By the time Jason had been ready to cut him loose, he’d had to flee Gotham.  Sure he was back and could take him out through his contacts in the prison, but now he was trying to play _nice_.  So overrated.

Anyway, he didn’t think Stephanie’d been quite as twisted up over her pseudo-death as he was over his actual death, but she definitely didn’t deserve Damian throwing it in her face.

Jason continued, “Thor Girl—”

“Lucia Morales, the electrokineticist,” Oracle supplied.

“—just got back from a food run, and she went straight for the building my guy pointed out to me.”  A not-quite gang of street kids had sent him to the docks and then Saul Taylor, an addict who kept bouncing in and out of rehab, had seen someone matching Morales’s description leave that warehouse ten minutes earlier.  He’d set up watch and looped the others in once he’d been sure.

“And the rest of the crew?” Tim asked.

That’s where Jason had run into a problem.  “I can’t get a visual.  You and O haven’t been able to track them electronically, right?  Well, something's scrambling the feeds in my helmet.  I can’t get a read on the inside of the building.  No infrared, no heat signatures, nothing.  I can see that the area surrounding the warehouse is littered with traps.”  Damn good ones, too.  Someone had woven them together in such a way that disarming one guaranteed setting three more off in response.  Whoever had constructed them had been meticulous in their construction, intricate and precise, and then stacked them on top of one another in a textbook definition of overkill.  Jason couldn’t have done better himself.

“The entire area of storage spaces you’re in is a virtual dead spot,” Oracle complained.  “Poor maintenance helped along by our hacker, Ruby Gregorek.  She must have set up some kind of interference to block all electronic surveillance.  And if she can block me, Tim, and Jason’s tech, she’s good.”

“Understatement.”

“So that’s a possible violent serial killer, a hacker who can outstrip Oracle and Bat Tech, plus three metas,” Tim rattled off.  “This isn’t a robbery crew.  It’s the beginning of the next supervillain cabal.”

Black Bat, who’d kept quiet through the bickering thus far, finally spoke.  “We’ll stop them.  Tonight.  And save our big brother.”

“Finally, some sensible fucking conversation,” Jason said.  “I'm moving in.  The grounds are trapped, but the roof looks clear.  And that, children, is why you should always have at least one Gotham native on your bad guy team.”

“Hear, hear,” Batgirl crowed.

“Wait, Hood, there’s no way you can take these guys on by yourself.”  Tim paused.  “I can’t believe I said that.  Out loud.  That’s the worst possible thing I could have said to talk you down, but I still said it.  What the heck’s in these meds Agent A gave me?”

“I’m just getting the lay of the land.  I’ll be able to get some kind of visual through the skylight.” Jason said before Tim could keep going on the most annoying diatribe of the night.  “Side note, how the hell did I get the reputation for being the impulsive one?  Dickface is the one who quadruple flips into danger without a net.  I plan shit.  I have contingencies.”

“And your contingencies have _explosions_.”  Barbara really seemed to be hung up on his tendency to work bombs into his work today.

Jason remained unrepentant.  “C4 can solve a lot of problems.”

“Jason Peter Todd—”

“Oh damn, full named,” Stephanie muttered.

“—I forbid you to blow up that warehouse.”

“You know, that crowbar didn’t actually leave me braindead.”  Not permanently, anyway.  “I do know not to blow the building with the hostage still inside.”

“Truly, a miraculous achievement, Todd,” Damian drawled.

“Things are winding down over here, O,” Batgirl said.  “Want me to break off and head for Hood’s location?  Robin and Black Bat can finish up and follow once GCPD’s rounded these guys up.”

“Good idea, BG.  Hood, recon only.  The… o wa…hand…ourself.”

Jason tapped the side of his helmet.  “O?  Oracle, repeat?  I’m losing you.”

“…od?  Come in… I… Hoo…”

Jason swore, though he couldn’t say he was surprised.  Gregorek wouldn’t block surveillance only to let communications sweep through.  He probably could step out of the range of whatever she’d set up and have a whole colony of Bats in his ear again.

But not doing that sounded much better.

Besides, what was left for them to say?  ‘Don’t kill anyone.  Wait for back up.  Don’t blow the warehouse, we mean it.’  He knew asking for trust was a pipe dream, but at this point he’d take a minimum expectation of competence and call it a win.

Jason deftly avoided the layered traps and grappled to the roof.  Even criminals born and bred in Gotham could forget to barricade high entrances against their hometown vigilantes.  Out-of-town criminals never learned.  Jason strolled over to the huge skylight that would hopefully let him get a full view of his targets.

He couldn’t get a visual on Gregorek.  Concerning.  He didn’t have one on Dick either, which worried him more.  The other four were sitting around a table littered with stacks of cash and fast food wrappers.  Danielle Kim, the flyer, shared an extremely unimpressed look with Morales while Daryl Collier (telepath) and Jonas Fletcher (muscle/serial killer) yelled at each other.  The argument seemed heated, but Jason couldn’t get his helmet to pick up their voices.  Honestly, this hacker had really made it her life’s mission to make his life difficult.

Fletcher surprised Jason.  Surveillance of all the robberies had been wiped, and Fletcher was enough of a loner that they hadn't been able to locate many other clear photos that displayed his entire frame.  He looked too small.  The wound patterns on his probable victims had suggested someone extremely strong, but Fletcher didn’t appear overly muscled.  He had the studiously average look and build Jason associated with most prolific serial killers actually.  But the killer he’d come looking for had all the hallmarks of a rage-based murderer.  He beat his victims nearly to death and then stabbed them so viciously the last two had been practically bisected.

Jason was just beginning to put together a picture he very much did not want to look at when Fletcher grabbed Collier’s head between his hands spun it 180 degrees.

Jason swore, ignoring Morales and Kim’s sudden shift from boredom to terror.  Fletcher wasn’t normal muscle; he was a meta human.  A meta human with superhuman strength growing increasingly more violent, who had now gotten volatile enough to turn on his team.  And Jason would bet all his hard-earned drug money that Grayson had inadvertently set this off.  He’d been wrong to count on the group overriding Fletcher’s violent impulses.  If he hadn’t hurt Dick yet, he was going to, and the fucker clearly didn’t pull punches.

Stephanie moving at top speed wouldn’t arrive for another thirty minutes.  He had to move now.

He pried open one pane of the skylight and dropped a handful of smoke pellets.  The three below began coughing and shouting in confusion.  It would only buy him a little time.  He’d loaded a gun with tranqs hours earlier to try and take the metas out at a distance.  That still struck him as the best plan.  He just had to reprioritize.  It was tempting to move Fletcher to the front of the line, but after months fighting alongside Kori, Jason firmly believed that grounding the flyer came first.

Only Kim had already moved.  Flyers always looked for the high ground, and she’d followed the sudden incursion to its source.  He pulled the trigger as she drew closer, but she stayed airborne just long enough to grab his jacket and pull him through.

She was out by the time she’d hit the ground, but she’d taken away the advantage of distance.  Plus he’d landed on his ankle wrong.  Nothing he couldn’t compensate for, but still, sloppy.

Oh well.  When in doubt, bluff.  “Good evening ladies and remaining gentleman!  Sorry to drop in like this, but… No, wait, I’m not actually sorry.”  He twirled the tranq gun and pulled another from the holster on his right hip before turning them on Fletcher.  He’d left the rubber bullets at home today, and that at least was one decision he wasn’t likely to regret.

“Batman?” Morales asked, voice shaking and rough from the smoke already beginning to clear.

Jason resisted the urge to twitch a gun in her direction.  “Do I fucking look like Batman?  I know you just witnessed a murder and everything, but Jesus, if you’re gonna come to Gotham, know your vigilantes.”

“Red Hood,” Fletcher growled, the basic timbre reminding him of Bane if you lost the accent.  Not promising in the least.  “What do you want?  Come to collect another head for your collection?”

“See, that’s what I mean.  Basic research, Morales, get with the program.”  Jason kept her in his peripheral vision but kept the bulk of his focus on Fletcher.  She was still in shock after Collier’s death.  He couldn’t count on that lasting forever.  He needed to either try and maneuver Fletcher and Morales into taking each other out or get her to cut and run.  Then, assuming Gregorek wasn’t secretly a shape-shifting vampire alien from dark space, he could finish up with the weak link.

“Answer my question,” Fletcher said.

“Well, for one thing, I don’t like serial killers in my city,” Jason announced in a tone of voice modified from his Robin days.  Cheerful always set the growly ones on edge.  “And you, Fletcher, have been a very, very busy boy.  I’ve managed to connect you with six bodies since you hooked up with these guys, not counting your friend Collier over there.  I’m betting you’ve also got some early work hiding out there I’d be real interested in.”

“Bod—you kill people?” Morales sounded almost comically surprised considering the friend lying dead at her feet.  “I never signed up for fucking murder, you son of a bitch!”

“Now it sounds like you know my work, Fletcher,” Jason continued brightly.  “It sounds like you know what I do to scumbags who think they can waltz into my city and murder people.”

“As if there’s no room in Gotham for one more murderer,” Fletcher said.

“Technically, yeah, there probably is.  But here’s the thing: I don’t want to make room.”  Jason made a show of aiming both guns straight for Fletcher’s eyes.  He doubted he'd have access to the targeting module in his helmet, but he was a crack shot without it.  “So tell me something, Joey.  How many people you kill in my city today?”

It was always a choice, one he made every time he went out into the field.  Kill or don’t kill.  He’d been making the same one over and over again for the better part of a year.  Non-fatal shots, no lethal force.  Some days were harder than others.  Today might be the hardest in a while, might actually be impossible.  It all depended on what Fletcher said next.

Because Dick Grayson on his own wasn’t enough to break the truce with the Bat.  But if Dick Grayson died, the truce did not exist.  Jason knew with savage certainty that Batman would hunt anyone who’d killed his first and favored son to the ends of the Earth and tear them to pieces.  Jason hadn’t mattered enough, but Dick did.  He’d just be saving Bruce the effort, if Dick had died.

Fletcher smiled.  “You want to know if I killed the Wayne brat.  Why?  What’s he to you?”

Jason didn’t have an easy answer for that, even if he had been willing to share.  Grayson was a thousand things that occasionally amounted to nothing.  A goal he couldn’t reach, a light he couldn’t catch.  A thorn in his side, but sometime collaborator; a target in his sights, and an ally at his back.

Maybe it was like this: Dick Grayson called himself Nightwing now, but he’d been Robin first.  And Jason didn’t leave Robins behind.

Jason shrugged.  “Daddy Waynebucks hired me to find Richie, and I get me a nice finder’s fee if I bring him back in one piece.  My payout’s a lot smaller if he’s coming home in a body bag though, and honestly, I’ll be real irritated if that’s the case.  You won’t like me when I’m irritated.  Not for long, but still.”

Fletcher would clearly be happy to leave this threat dangling for kicks, but Morales had checked out the moment he’d turned on Collier.  She’d just needed a few minutes to collect herself.  “Fuck this.  Fuck this weirdo in a helmet, and fuck you in particular, Jonas.”  She stalked over towards Kim.  “Wayne’s still alive, though Jonas put him through the ringer.  That’s what he and Collier were arguing about.  But I guess if you just wanted to kill the guy this whole time—Ugh, screw it.  I’m out.  Keep your money, Jonas.  Dani and I are out.”

“The hell you are!” Fletcher bellowed.

“For the literal last time: you are not in charge.”  She widened her stance and flung both hands out at her sides.  White hot sparks danced around her wrists and every hair on Jason’s body stood on end.  “We’re.  Leaving.”

Fletcher roared.  Typical aggro would let Jason mouth off for hours, but the second a lady stood up to him, he lost it.  He ran forward, drawing one fist back to punch Jason out of the way and into an early grave, while Morales let a torrent of power arc from her fingertips.  Jason had been prepared for them to turn on each other and sprang away before either attack could hit, compensating for the ankle injury.  Fletcher screamed when Morales’s power surge hit him, but he didn’t stop.  Jason had both hoped the shock would bring him down.

It didn’t.

Jason had never needed to spend a lot of time deciding which criminals deserved to die.  He’d been real clear on that belief from the age of eight onward.  Lucia Morales wasn’t one of them.

Jason fired the heavy revolver at Fletcher, striking him twice in the shoulder.  They hit, knocking him off his trajectory just enough so that he didn’t bash Lucia’s face in.  Jason followed up with a tranq shot, hitting him center mass.

Fletcher stumbled, swayed.

He still didn’t fall.

Lucia stared at Fletcher.  At Jason.  At Dani Kim lying on the floor.

Then she turned tail and ran.

Smart girl.  Not loyal, but hey.  Loyal could get you killed.

Fletcher yelled, hunching his shoulders and flexing until he grew.  Bane needed Venom to accomplish that, but Fletcher’s abilities apparently allowed him to bulk up at will.  His veins bulged against his skin, and Jason realized a second later what that meant: Fletcher could actually metabolize the sedatives in the tranquilizer at will.  Any intravenous substance would be useless against him.

“This fucking day,” Jason hissed, tossing the tranq gun.  He’d have better luck with bullets.  That was usually true in his experience.  He pulled another pistol from the arsenal on his back and backflipped out of Fletcher’s reach, firing four more shots into Fletcher’s knees as he spun.

They all struck home, but they stayed embedded in his kneecaps.  They weren't blown out, and there were no exit wounds.  He should have toppled.  He just looked pissed.

“Motherfucker, do you get bulletproof when you get angry?”

Fletcher just howled, apparently beyond speech as he charged again.

If Jason wanted all his insides to remain inside, he needed to keep his distance.  Only problem?  A natural consequence of being super strong was that you got secondary abilities like super durability (which, obviously) and super speed.  Fletcher had no hope of beating the Flash in a race, but he would beat Jason every time.

Jason needed to take him down hard, fast, and stop fussing so much about Bat Protocol to do it.  He adjusted his aim for Fletcher’s head and emptied what remained of both clips.

Fletcher dodged all but two bullets.

Those glanced off him like god damned Superman.

“Jiminy Flipping Christmas,” Jason grumbled, dropping the pistols.  He didn’t have time reload and he had three more on him.

Fletcher roared again and charged, drawing a knife from his belt because of course he did.

Jason reviewed his options.  Morales’s powers delivered a shock roughly three times the power of a military grade stun gun.  If she hadn’t brought him down, the taser in his chest would do jack all.  Barb had been twitchy about blowing the warehouse, but Jason did have a few explosives on him with a payload small enough not to bring the building down, including the one in his helmet.  Unfortunately, those took time to arm, and he didn’t think Fletcher was likely to take a seat while he rigged something.  He could try luring him outside to hit the traps, but that probably meant taking Jason out alongside Fletcher.  Far from an ideal outcome.  And if bullets glanced off him, Jason didn’t have a lot of hope for the Bataraangs he’d “borrowed” from the cave last month.

Truthfully, Jason wasn’t loaded for bear like Batman would have been.  Well, not for a rabid, flying bear with chainsaws for arms anyway, and that's what fighting metas was like.  By some metrics, Jason was the most heavily harmed vigilante in Gotham, but he tended to favor different kinds of guns paired with different kinds of knives.  Batman had any number of weird, specialized toys on him at all times because he was way more likely to go up against someone like Fletcher or Morales on any given day.  Jason’s pockets were filled with tools more suited to his day-to-day operations in the Alley: extra ammunition, cash and food for informants, cards for shelters, and drugs to combat overdoses.  Assuming he got out of this, he needed to make sure he didn’t get stuck up shit creek without a ray gun again.

He drew the kris Talia had given him years ago.  If a knife from the League of Shadows couldn’t cut this guy, then the al Ghuls had lost their touch and he'd stalk Ra's from beyond the grave to tell him so.  He dropped the rest of his smoke pellets to try and give him some semblance of an advantage.  Fletcher wised up enough to guard his vitals, or else Jason would have gone straight for his neck and damn the consequences.

Death by a thousand cuts it was.

Jason dodged in and out of Fletcher’s reach, slashing and darting away as many times as he could before the smoke cleared.  Fletcher tried to get under his guard, but Fletcher still couldn’t see through the fog.  Jason's helmet did filter out that much, and even if it didn't, Jason could track Fletcher way better than Fletcher could track him.  His swings missed Jason by miles.

Jason’s landed.  One cut to the shoulder, two slashes at his ribs, and both Achilles’s tendons sliced through.  Fletcher flailed in pain, exposing his neck.  The smoke had started to dissipate, but Jason would have to risk it.  He sprang forward.

And then his helmet blacked out.

Three words filled his vision.

**‘Detonation Protocol Activated.’**

Shit.  He’d forgotten about Gregorek, and now here were the teeth on his ass, right on schedule.

He threw himself to the side, hoping Fletcher wouldn’t notice this new distress and started scrabbling for the release on his helmet.  The countdown had already started.  He had ten seconds.

At eight seconds, Fletcher screamed, “Found you, Hood!”

At seven seconds, Jason hit the release on his helmet.

At six seconds, Fletcher stabbed him, cutting through the thickest part of his body armor like butter and dragging the knife across.

At four seconds, Jason realized that matched the nigh-bisected wound pattern on Fletcher’s victims almost exactly.

At two seconds, Jason threw the helmet at Fletcher’s head and rolled behind a pillar.

At zero, the helmet exploded, and Fletcher finally stopped.

That wasn’t as comforting as it could have been.

Jason sank into a crouch, curling over the new hole in his gut.  He prayed he wasn’t actively holding his guts in.  But shit, whatever Fletcher had done hurt.  He'd hurt worse.  He'd learned pain from the back of Willis's hand, from Catherine lying still on the bathroom floor, from hunger that left him hollow.  He'd learned it from Batman, from Joker, from Talia.  He'd learned it taking four bullets on patrol at fourteen.  He'd learned it crawling out of his own grave at fifteen.  He'd learned it drowning in the Lazarus Pit at sixteen.

He'd hurt worse, but it had been a long time since he'd felt hurt this deep.

He knew what the deep hurts meant. 

“Ah, Jonas didn’t kill you?”  A beat.  “Oh, no.  He has.  Just not yet.”

Jason looked up at Ruby Gregorek, the supposed weak link and the last one standing.   “What can I say, Rube?  I’m one stubborn guy.”

She smiled pityingly.  “Yes, I noticed that.  Perhaps even more than our dear, departed Jonas.”

Jason didn’t want to look away from her to chance a look in Fletcher’s direction.  And it’s not like he enjoyed seeing even the sickest of bastards decapitated.  “You gonna retaliate?  Kill me too?”

Ruby crouched next to him and shifted his arm away.  He moaned, his heart flying for his throat at the thought of losing blood any faster.  She’d barely glanced at the wound before pushing his arm back into place and declaring, “At this point, I feel that would be redundant.”

Because she was close and Jason was a spiteful asshole, he lashed out with his kris without really bothering to aim.  Her eyes flashed white, pupil and iris vanishing in a milky haze against her light brown skin.  Then the electrodes in his body armor all misfired, giving him a full body tasering he’d be feeling for… well, however long he had left.  It should have knocked him out, but Ruby hadn’t set it off at full power.

Then he actually laughed, the sound echoing desperately in the cavernous room.  “Unbelievable.  You’re not a hacker.  You’re a god damn technopath.  Man, intel on this job sucked.”

“Yes, I deemed it prudent to keep mine and Jonas’s abilities under wraps for as long as possible,” Ruby said coolly.  “His urges were much harder to keep in check.  Truthfully, you did me a favor, Hood.  Killing Jonas and granting me insight into some truly fascinating tech in the span of a few minutes.  I had hoped you would connect me with to the Batman's tech as well, but it is not to be.”  She shrugged, displacing the dark red and electric blue dreadlocks that hung to her waist.

Robin red and Nightwing blue, he thought.  Downright literary.

“It almost makes leaving the money behind worth it.  Dani and I won’t be able to carry it on our own, and I fear Lucy has abandoned us for good.”  She shook her head in genuine remorse.  “I will miss her.  I could take or leave Colli, but Lucy could be kind.  Kindness, I’ve found, is an underappreciated quality whether you cast yourself a hero or a villain.

"She really worried about what Jonas did to the Wayne boy.  Particularly since she was the one who pushed so hard to grab him.  She had dreams of a billion dollar ransom.  I allowed him to be taken, so perhaps I did too.  I regret this error.  Jonas’s death means little, but even so.”

Right.  Dick.  The reason he’d gotten into this mess.  “Where is he?” Jason hissed, voice straining.

“The back offices.  He was out cold when I left him, but breathing steadily.  I believe he’ll wake shortly.”  Ruby pushed herself to her feet.  “If you can get to him in your condition, be my guest.  In the meantime, Dani and I will be on our way.”

Jason could hear Kim beginning to come around, having metabolized her own set of sedatives faster than the average human.  In any other condition, he would have tried to stop them, but Jason knew his limits.  He could fight them, maybe take them down with him, or he could get to Dick.  He’d gotten out of bed that afternoon to save Grayson.  He damn well planned on seeing finishing the job.  “I feel contractually obligated to tell you that you won’t get away with this.”

“Are you planning on stopping us?”

“Nah, I’m done,” Jason said.  That felt too easy to admit, like he should have been fighting harder for the life slipping hot and dark through his fingers.  It might have been the shock well and truly settling in, or he’d decided to come at the stages of grief in a completely bassackwards way.  Had he grieved for himself the first time, or had he spent too long praying for rescue?  “I’m done, but you know the Bats don’t like it when you mess with the Waynes.”

Ruby arched an oversculpted eyebrow.  “Obviously.  You’re here.”

“Not a Bat.”

She glanced pointedly at the insignia on his body armor but otherwise didn’t comment.  “We might not get far.  However, I’m, as you say, contractually obligated to make the attempt.  And part of me is interested to know if you’ve built a prison that can hold me.  They’re all so electronically dependent.”

“Sorry if I don’t wish you good luck,” Jason said, laboring against the temptation to pass out.  A few moments later, she’d fully brought Dani Kim around and pulled her away from the bodies of their teammates.  They wanted to live, and that meant leaving the dead behind.  Including him.

“Luck is for the unprepared,” Ruby announced, settling into Dani Kim’s arms.  “I have no use for it.”

Jason laughed, the sound wet and rattling in his throat.  “You know, Rube, if you weren’t such an evil witch, I think we might have gotten along.”

“Yes, I think so too.”  She smiled coldly.  “Goodbye, Red Hood.  Tell Richard I’m sorry for the inconvenience.”  Then the pair of them lifted into the air and flew off.

Leaving Jason to bleed out on a warehouse floor.

Again.

Yeah, fuck that.

Jason took a deep, rallying breath and pulled himself to his feet.  The act was pure agony and it took three tries before he’d pushed himself upright.

His comm had been blown up along with the helmet, but he reached into his pocket to pull out the one burner phone he’d grabbed.  He checked the time.  Less than ten minutes had passed since he’d last been in contact with Oracle and the others.  Stephanie was still at least fifteen minutes away.  Calling couldn’t make her run any faster.

He tossed the phone away and pushed himself towards the area Ruby had indicated.  “Look alive, Damsel Dickface!”

Dick, who’d probably been faking his fainting spell, responded immediately.  “Hood?  That you?”

“More or less,” Jason shouted back.  He glanced down at the slash across his stomach and murmured, “Mostly less.”

“You came after me?”

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Jason said, shuffling towards the sound of Dick’s stupidity.  “You’d be more annoying dead than alive.”

“Not sure how you figure that, but damn, Jay.  I’m really glad to see – or, hear you.”

“With Jonas Fletcher for company?  I’ll just bet.”  He kept moving.  His gut and the ankle didn’t make it easy, but Jason couldn’t remember any part of his life being easy.  Life wasn’t there to be easy.  It was there to fuck you over, hard and often, and your job was to come out the other side sharper, stronger, and your teeth stained red.

Jason spat out a mouthful of blood.  He’d certainly managed the last one.

“Yeah, he… he wasn’t my favorite,” Dick admitted hoarsely.

Jason rounded the corner and located the room where Dick’s voice seemed to be coming from.  The door was locked, and Jason didn’t have the finesse to pick it just then.  He also might not have the time.  He banged on the door just to make sure he’d found the right office.  “Can you get clear?”

Dick laughed, and there was something jagged in the sound.  “I’m chained up, but as long as you don’t blow the door, I should be clear.  Assuming that explosion I heard was you.”

“You be sure and tell Barbie that shit wasn’t intentional.”  He drew another from his shoulder holster, scowling at the way his hand shook.  Fuck but he’d lost a lot of blood.  “Fire in the hole,” he croaked, and then shot the doorknob off.

The door banged open, and Jason stumbled inside.  Not his finest entrance, but he was moving.  He’d crawl the rest of the way if he had to.  He wouldn’t leave this job unfinished.

Dick and Jason stared at each other, cataloging the other’s injuries in silent horror.  Fletcher’d really taken a liking to beating on Dick, an impulse Jason could technically understand, but not a privilege he handed out to anyone who wasn’t family.

Not that Jason was family.  Fuck.  Whatever.

Fletcher had broken both of Dick's legs, and Jason could see bone jutting out from his left calf.  The way he held himself led Jason to believe he also had a few cracked ribs and a dislocated shoulder, plus a mess of broken fingers.  Even Dick’s pretty face looked like he'd gotten up close and personal with a meat grinder.

Jason took a moment to breathe in the vicious satisfaction that Jonas Fletcher was dead.  He only wished it had been slower.

“Oh, shit.”  Dick widened his left eye, the right too swollen to budge.  “Jay?”

“It’s fine,” Jason said even has he basically fell next to the chair Dick had been bound to.  “Let me just get you out of this.”

Dick gave him a look that managed to be both frantic and thunderous.  Jason had seen him regularly turn that one on Batman ever since he’d first inherited the pixie boots, always when the old man insisted he hadn’t been hurt that bad.  Of all the times to emulate Bruce.  Jason sure picked his moments.  “It’s not fine.  Jason, you need medical attention now.  Where are the others?”

“Shit popped off in the Narrows while we were looking for you.”  Jason started fumbling with his lockpicks.  Not like he could shoot the padlock off Dick like he’d done with the door.  “Blondie ducked out early, but she’s still miles off.”

He couldn’t see Dick’s face anymore, but Jason imagined he could almost hear him pale.  “Jay—”

“I know.  She ain’t getting here in time.”

“She might if you—Look, just forget me for now.  I’ll be okay until they get here.  Just focus on stopping the bleeding.”

Jason chanced another look at the blood flowing from the cut.  Its condition didn’t surprise him.  Didn’t even dismay him.  Maybe he’d used up all his desperation on his first death.  “Dick, I might be the definition of disemboweled right now.  The blood’s dark and it’s coming fast.  We both know what that means.”

“No.”

Jason recoiled at how… small Dick sounded.  For years, Nightwing had been a key figure in Jason’s life.  He wasn’t just the goal on the horizon; he _was_ the horizon.  But now he sounded wrecked and wretched and small.  Shattered.  Jason didn’t know what to make of that.

He brushed it off, kept working the lock.  “Come on, you got the same lessons from Daddy Bats as me.”

“I meant—Damn it, this would be such a stupid way to die!”

Was Dick crying?  No, must be blood loss messing with him.  “Of course it’s a stupid way to die.  This whole gig is stupid, or hadn’t you figured that out by now?”  Miraculously, he felt the tumblers start to give way.  Muscle memory had always been good to him.  “We dress up in costumes and fight crime.  We get shot at and blown up and stabbed and beaten with _crowbars_ —” Jason slammed his jaw shut.  One death at a time.  He could only deal with one death at a time if he didn’t want to lose it.  “And we take that shit for free.  It’s the stupidest god damn thing I’ve ever heard.”

The real kicker?  He’d never even considered stopping.  Once the Lazarus madness had receded to a distant scream he could almost ignore, once he’d decided tormenting Bruce and his Baby Bats wasn’t worth his time – once he’d grown to regret it, at least somewhat – he’d tried to entertain the idea of giving up the gig entirely.  He wouldn’t get what he wanted.  The gaping maw of need and rage inside of him could never be filled.  Bruce had been trying to do that for himself his whole life, and if the Batman couldn’t manage it, what chance did Jason have?

Too bad Jason wasn’t built for anything else.  Even if he could have cobbled together something resembling a life in the ashes of discarded masks, he couldn’t leave Gotham to Bruce.  Gotham needed Batman, sure, but it needed Red Hood too.  Not that Bruce would ever admit it.  And frankly as long as the Joker lived, Jason couldn’t stop fighting.

Jason’s chest suddenly burned.

The Joker.  He hadn’t killed the Joker.

He’d die in another warehouse, and the Joker would still be around to laugh about it tomorrow.

Despair finally reached up to crush the air from his lungs.

The lock gave way.

Dick immediately set to work on getting free from the loosened chains.  Jason couldn’t imagine how much it must have hurt after the beating he’d taken, but he didn’t try and talk Dick out of whatever he wanted to do.  His words felt gone.  Dust in his mouth.

There’d been a few days there in the beginning when he’d begged Talia to put him back in the ground.  The Pit had been so loud, hurt so damn much, even before she showed him newspaper clippings and photographs.  She’d slapped him so hard his lip split against his teeth.  He hadn’t asked again.

He’d eventually found consolation in the idea that he’d been brought back for a reason.  He didn’t remember being in heaven or hell, but his mother (his real mother, Catherine, who’d loved him and who’d at least tried to keep him safe) had believed in God.  She’d taken him to Church on good days, when Willis hadn’t beaten her to hell or when she hadn’t been too sick or high to move.  She’d prayed with him most nights, always the same one.  ‘Now I lay me down to sleep/I pray the Lord my soul to keep/If I should die before I wake/I pray the Lord my soul to take.’  He didn’t believe like she had, but he hoped there was something.  Not necessarily benevolent or vengeful or all-seeing.  He’d have settled for arbitrary.  Something who’d glanced down randomly, seen Joker at the right time and Jason Todd at the wrong time.  Something who decided Jason’s life tied to the clown’s, and if that was the price Jason had to pay to live, to keep anyone else from dying like he had, he’d pay it.

Only Jason had failed.  Jason had failed so spectacularly it was like a damn farce.  He’d had two chances, and he’d blown them both.

He could have made his third chance, carved it out with the sharp edge of his knife.  Could have thrown off the promise of compromise with Batman and his brood by just storming Arkham on his own and putting as many bullets as he could carry between Joker’s two-toned eyes.

But he’d decided he wanted Gotham.  He wanted starless nights and leaping familiar rooftops.  He wanted to see his neighborhood safe.  He wanted to keep chasing Dick’s horizon.  He wanted brunch and gentle conversation with Alfred.  He wanted Barb’s voice in his ear, Steph’s wild laughter, Cass’s silent smiles.  He wanted to get to know Damian beyond the posturing, see what kind of kid Talia had raised.  Hell, even if he couldn't quite manage to get over that lingering resentment of Tim, he was sorry for attacking the kid when his issues had always been with Bruce.

And damn, he wanted Bruce.  His father.  Maybe all he’d ever really wanted was his father.

He’d wanted that, but he’d never gotten it.  He should have known he didn’t have time.  None of them had time, but he’d acted like he had.  He’d checked himself for them, let the Joker and a hundred other deserving criminals live for them, but they hadn’t wanted him.  And he’d run out of time.

Finally, Dick tipped himself over until he hit the floor and dragged himself over to Jason with his one good arm.  He grabbed Jason’s leather jacket and levered himself mostly upright, until he could press both arms and his full body weight into the laceration.

Turned out Dick actually was crying.  Huh.  “Shit.  _Shit_.  Can you raise someone?”

“Comm got blown up with my helmet.”  The Joker’s laugh roared in his ears.  “Bitching to Babs about how gory we are isn’t going to make them get here any faster.”

“I wouldn’t mind some guidance on how to keep you from fucking bleeding out!” Dick yelled.

“Dick.”

“Maybe we can use—”

“ _Dick_.”

To both their amazement, Dick shut up.

God, Jason felt tired.  And pretty sure that if he closed his eyes now, he wouldn’t open them again.  The temptation to do just that called to him, a siren song to pull him into the undertow.  But Robin had died fighting until the last moment.  If a fifteen-year-old cosplaying as a stoplight could do it, so could he.  He owed that much to himself, to the boy who had died.

“I need a favor.”

“No,” Dick spat, mutinous.  “You are not giving me this last request bullshit.  Steph—”

“—will not get here in time.”  Pushing Dick now was ruthless.  He had to be in more pain than Jason.  The blood loss had started to leave his whole body numb and floaty.  But the others had always told him who he was: ruthless, violent, Bad Robin.  Why shatter their perceptions now?  “I need you to promise me something.  Two somethings, I guess.

“I wrote a will years ago.  I left it with Roy.  Not sure how ‘sound of mind’ I was at the time.  Even if I was, Bruce’d happily steamroll right over it if he—”

Jason coughed, splattering them both with blood.  Right, he didn’t have time to bitch about Bruce right now.

“Don’t let him bury me,” Jason said.  Begged.  “And don’t let them throw me in the Pit again.”

Dick’s back bowed with a sob.  “Jay.”

“I’m not cut out for this ride a third time.”  His eyes flooded with tears, but he held them back.  That boys don’t cry nonsense was worse than bullshit, but some stubborn mule part of him would fight crying in front of Dick to the bitter end.  “Hell… I didn’t want to come back the second time.  And it’s not like anyone else… wanted me either.”

“That’s not true,” Dick said, reaching up with one hand to grab the side of Jason’s face.  “Please, you have to know that’s not true.”

Jason didn’t, and he didn’t have time to argue.  “See, B might think… he can control it – control me – if he’s there for the whole… process this time.  You know how he is.  But he can’t.  Odds are I’ll just kill him outright, and that’s… not a fair trade.”  He laughed.  It sounded like glass cracking, like bones breaking, like a light he couldn’t catch falling away.  “Demon Brat’d be so pissed.  He’d kill me again for it, and then it’s… getting kind of sitcom.  All the dying.”

It was getting harder to speak.  Harder to think.

Maybe he would sleep after all.

“Jay?  Jay!  Come on, Jay, keep your eyes on me.”

Right, right.  Listen to Dick.  Dick always knew what to do.  Keep his eyes open.  Get what he wanted before he went away.

“You promise?” Jason slurred.

Dick wept, spilling all the tears Jason held back.  Or maybe Jason was crying now too.  He couldn’t feel his face anymore to be sure either way.  “I’ll do whatever you like, Little Wing, stay with me.”

“Always liked… that nickname,” Jason said.  It felt safe to admit that now for some reason.  “Gave you shit for it, but I liked it.”

“I know you did.  And I will call you that every day for the rest of your life if you just stay awake.”

“Hey, this… this is funny, Dick,” he said.  “Listen.  Fuckin’ plaque’ll finally be worth a damn.  ‘Good Soldier.’  Saving Golden Boy.  Not much… better solider than that.  Leave no man behind ‘n shit.”

“Don’t leave me.”  Dick begged.  Hadn’t Jason begged earlier?  That made him feel warm for some reason.  But no, he was shivering.  Wasn’t he?  “Don’t you dare leave.  I can’t… Don’t go, not again, please.”

“Did you promise, Dick?  Don’t remember.”

A long, silent, tortured breath.  A pressure against his forehead, Dick’s brow against his.  A hand tightening on his neck, skin slipping with damp.  “I promise, Little Wing.”

“Good,” Jason sighed, sinking.  “If not… I’d haunt you like… my damn job.”

An improvement as far as last words went, he thought.

He left.

 

 

 

 

 

Then he came back.


End file.
